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'Amazing' harvest weather

The amount of corn and soybean harvesting that gets done in the Nation's midsection over the next ten days should be nothing short of amazing. There is a bit more uncertainty in the 6-10 day outlook today, but my thoughts right now is that rains in that period will stay both west and east of the Plains, the Corn Belt, and the Delta.

Thus, for the bulk of those areas, we are looking at rain-free conditions over the next ten days and thus the combines will be able to go non-stop. More than likely farmers will be two-thirds done with the soybean harvest by the time we get to October 10. The only real notable feature that I see with regards to Midwest weather coming up is the likelihood of a frost for this weekend.

We will start to see some 30s for lows in northern and far northeastern parts of the region for Saturday, but for Sunday and/or Monday mornings basically anyone in the Midwest can see lows in the 30s with the likelihood of temperatures at 32 degrees and lower for northeastern Iowa, eastern Minnesota Wisconsin, Michigan, and northern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

This dry weather is great for harvesting, but at some point we are going to need to see soils in the Midwest and Delta moisten up for soft-red winter wheat planting. The Delta region is said to be "bone-dry" right now, and it can't be much different in Indiana and Ohio where topsoils as of Sunday were rated in excess of 80 percent short to very short of moisture.

In the Plains hard-red winter wheat belt, areas that got rain last week are likely taking advantage of that moisture to get a lot of winter wheat planted right now and that crop should be off to a good start. It is too dry though for the western third of Kansas southward into parts of the panhandles though, so that is an area to watch for eventual concerns.